The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

Whelan went on: “So you see, Andy, in this hypothetical for-example we’re talking about, the President did have the authority to do what he did.”

McClarren knocked over one of the two microphones on the desk. They were props, rather than working microphones. But McClarren’s three point five million viewers didn’t know this.

McClarren thought: Jesus! What can I do for an encore? Spill coffee in my lap?

Whalen smiled at him sympathetically, and went on: “He didn’t have to ask Congress for anything. The whole event was over in three days. What they call a fait accompli, Andy.”

McClarren straightened the microphone, and then flashed Whelan a brilliant smile.

“I don’t believe a word of that, Harry,” he said.

“You weren’t expected to,” Whalen responded, every bit as condescendingly as before. “It was all hypothetical, Andy. All you were supposed to do was think about it.”

“What I’m wondering is what all your hypothetical stuff has to do with all those police cars at the gate of Fort Detrick. Have you got the straight scoop on that, or just more hypothesis?”

He made “hypothesis” sound like a dirty word.

“Well, Andy, my gut feeling—my hypothesis, if you prefer—is that when Porky Parker made his statement, he was doing something he doesn’t often do.”

“Which was?”

“Porky was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. There was some kind of accident in one of the laboratories. Somebody dropped an Erlenmeyer flask on the floor. Six white mice or a couple of monkeys escaped their cages. I have no idea what. Something happened. The material in those labs is really dangerous. They did what they were supposed to do: They declared a potential—operative word ‘potential’—disaster. The post was closed down until the problem could be dealt with. When it was dealt with, they called off the emergency procedures.

“While all this was going on, the CIA and Homeland Security and every police force between here and Baltimore started chasing their tails—arf-arf—and when the ever-vigilant press got wind of this, they got in their helicopters and flew to Fort Detrick, where they chased their tails in the sky—arf-arf—until they were run off. If there was any danger to anyone at Fort Detrick today, it was from the clowns in the helicopters nearly running into each other. The Army scientists there know what they’re doing.”

“That could be, I suppose,” Andy McClarren said very dubiously. “But what I would like to know is—”

Roscoe J. Danton saw the image of McClarren on the Club America TV replaced with an image of the logotype of Aerolíneas Argentinas and a notice announcing the immediate departure of Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 1007, nonstop service to Buenos Aires from Gate 17.

“Christ,” Danton complained out loud. “They told me it was delayed for at least two hours.”

He stood up, and a firm believer in the adage that if one wastes not, one wants not, drained his drinks.

The Aerolíneas Argentinas announcement then was replaced first with the whirling globes of Wolf News, and then by the image of an aged former star of television advising people of at least sixty-two years of age of the many benefits of reverse mortgages.

Roscoe, who had been hoping to get another glimpse of the royally pissed-off Andy McClarren, said, “Shit!”

Then he hurriedly walked out of Club America.

[ONE]

United States-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas

0730 5 February 2007

“What the fuck is that?” United States Border Patrol agent Guillermo Amarilla inquired in Spanish of Senior Patrol Agent Hector Hernandez as the latter stepped hard on the brakes of their green Jeep station wagon.

The station wagon skidded on the rutted dirt road, coming to a stop at nearly a right angle. On one side of the road was a sugarcane field. On the other

was waist-high brush. The brush extended for about one hundred fifty yards, ending at the bank of the Rio Grande. The demarcation line between the United States and the Estados Unidos Mexicanos was at the center of the river, which at that point was just over one hundred yards wide.

The dirt road, ten yards from where the Jeep had stopped, was blocked.

An oblong insulated metal box was sitting on a plank suspended between two plastic five-gallon jerrycans.

Nailed to the plank was a large sign hand-lettered ¡¡PELIGROSO!! and ¡¡DANGER!!

Amarilla and Hernandez, without speaking, were out of the vehicle in seconds. Both held Remington Model 870 12-gauge pump shotguns. Crouching beside the station wagon, Hernandez carefully examined the brush, and Amarilla the sugarcane field.